A Role with Soul

Dennis Quaid and AnnaSophia Robb jumped at the chance to play parts in Soul Surfer, the true-story movie about Bethany Hamilton, who lost an arm to a shark attack.

Mark Moring/ March 19, 2010

A Role with Soul

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A Role with Soul

Dennis Quaid and AnnaSophia Robb jumped at the chance to play parts in Soul Surfer, the true-story movie about Bethany Hamilton, who lost an arm to a shark attack.

Mark Moring/ March 19, 2010

Dennis Quaid knows what it's like to almost lose a child to a tragic accident. Two of them, in fact. In November 2007, his two-week-old twins, Thomas and Zoe, almost died in a Los Angeles hospital when they were accidentally given a massive overdose of a blood thinner.

The babies almost bled to death, but slowly stabilized as doctors and nurses administered an antidote. After 12 days, they were well enough to come home, and they're happy, healthy toddlers today. Quaid, one of Hollywood's most popular actors, and wife Kimberly later settled with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for $750,000.

"Not a day goes by that I don't think [about it]," Quaid told CBS several months after the incident. "I don't take anything for granted any more, 'cause if they hadn't made it, there never would've been another happy day."

Quaid has been rethinking those difficult days recently in his latest movie role, that of a man who almost lost his teenage daughter in a shark attack. The film is Soul Surfer, which just finished filming in Hawaii and should release in 2011. It's the true story of Bethany Hamilton, who in 2003 lost her left arm to a shark attack at the age of 13. She almost bled to death that morning, but made a courageous and remarkable recovery and was surfing again three weeks later.

Today, Hamilton, 20, is one of the world's top professional surfers, despite the balance challenges that come with having just one arm. An outspoken Christian, Hamilton credits God with her recovery, perseverance, and desire to tell her story around the world—a story that will now be told on the big screen, with Quaid playing her father, Helen Hunt her mother, and 16-year-old AnnaSophia Robb as Bethany. Country singer Carrie Underwood makes her film debut ...

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